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Holy
Trinity, Hockham

East
Anglia has no shortage of big churches, and it
has no shortage of remote churches, but it is
curious to find such a big church quite so hidden
away in the woods and fields. Hockham, more
properly Great Hockham, although there is now no
lesser equivalent, is a substantial village just
off of the Watton to Thetford road, but its great
church is about half a mile off, down a long
track. Unfortunately, this has given the parish
reason to keep it locked, which is most
unfortunate, because for one reason at least this
is historically one of Norfolk's more important
buildings.

If you are a James Joyce
fan then the name 'Hockham' suggests somewhere
fat and comfortable, and that is certainly the
impression you get from seeing this church across
the park for the first time. It must have been
magnificent when it had its tower, but that fell
in the early 18th century. The curious turret
replacement came in the 1850s, certainly as a
response to the medievalist enthusiasms of that
time, but in its style pre-ecclesiological.
There's a good range of window tracery of all
periods, the finest of which is the delicate
Decorated tracery of the east windows of the
chancel and south aisle, but overall this looks a
typical late medieval East Anglian church. The
modern parish room built on to the north doorway
would be more intrusive on a smaller building,
but blends in very nicely here.

You step into an interior which belies the
setting. This could be a town church, and there was a
further restoration in the 1950s which included the
replacement of the roof. Hockham's great treasure,
however, is from a much earlier time. You turn east to
see an extensive scheme of wall paintings above the
chancel arch. They are easily discernible, but to really
understand them you need to imagine the great medieval
rood in front of them: Christ crucified on the cross, and
flanked by the Blessed Virgin and St John. Every single
parish church in England had one of these. Not a single
one survived the Anglican reformers of the 16th century.

The composition above the chancel arch here
at Hockham is known as the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
This was a late medieval devotion, and if the assumed
date of 1450 for this one is correct, then this is an
early example. God the Father is shown seated in Majesty,
with the dove of the Holy Spirit descending in front of
him. This image would have been behind and above the
sculpture of Christ on the cross, the outline of which
can be seen, thus completing a Holy Trinity. Either side,
and behind where the carved figures of Mary and John
would have been, are two kneeling figures, presumably the
donors who paid for the work to be carried out, flanked
by shields depicting the Holy Trinity and the Passion.
Beneath, and the outstanding feature of this survival, St
Gabriel appears to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the
Annunciation. These last two figures are so clear that
you can still make out the words on the scrolls that they
bear. Something similar survives a few miles off at Attleborough.

In the north aisle are fragments of what is
believed to be an earlier extensive scheme of wall
painting. The two main scenes depict the Adoration of the
Shepherds and the Last Supper, although this latter image
has another painting of something visible above. The Last
Supper has been obscured by a later monument.

The
general consensus is that wall paintings such as these
were covered up by the Anglicans in the 1540s, but there
is an increasing body of evidence that some earlier
paintings were obscured up to a century before this, as
theological currents were stirred and emphases were
changed in response to the Black Death wiping out roughly
half of East Anglia's population in the late 1340s. We
suddenly all became a lot more serious. At this time,
wall paintings change from being broadly devotional to
becoming cathechetical tools. Interestingly, the
increasing focus on Christ's death on the cross in scenes
like this would inform, and crystallise within, the new
Protestant theology of the 16th century and after, with
its emphasis on Christ dying for the sins of man.

Were it
not for the wall paintings, there are still important
medieval survivals at Hockham. These are the early 16th
Century bench ends, which seem to have more in common
with contemporary work over the border in neighbouring
Suffolk. The best include a Mermaid with a comb and a
mirror, a contortionist, and two acrobats. There are
similar images a few miles off at Lakenheath.

Hockham
has late 19th century glass of variable quality. There is
a beautiful Adoration of the Magi scene by the Kempe
workshop in the east window of the south aisle, and some
mildy interesting glass by the minor workshop of ER
Suffling in the nave, but the image of Christ as the Good
Shepherd is truly horrid.

I
stepped back out into the bright light of this
late spring day. It was the second time I had
visited Hockham church, and the previous occasion
had been a similarly lovely day. On that
occasion, the Historic Churches Bike Ride 2006,
we had found St Mary locked, an extraordinary
thing for that day in this part of Norfolk, and I
had been a little cross, I don't mind admitting.
I hadn't been the only one, judging by a furious
message which had been scrawled on the
checking-in form in the porch. But all was
forgiven in the birdsong and sunshine.

The
graveyard on the south side is secretive and
beautiful, not least because all the hideous
marble headstones have been banished to the north
side. It does worry me to think that, in a
thousand years time, when churches like St Mary
have crumbled to dust, those awful grey-veined
stones with their vacuous messages and kitschy
pictures of horses and dogs will still be around,
looking just the same as they do today, and our
remote ancestors will form all their judgements
about us simply by looking at them.